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^UNITED STATES OF AMEKICA.' 



THE 



STORY OF A STOMACH: 



AN EGOTISM. 



BY 

A REFORMED DYSPEPTIC. 



NEW YORK: . 
PUBLISHED BY EOWLER AND WELLS, 

389 Broadway. 
1867. 



^> 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1866, by 

Fowler and Wells, 

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District of 

New York. 



RIVERSIDE. CAMBRIDGE : 

STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY 

H. 0. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY. 



DEDICATED 

TO 

MY WIFE, 

WHO IS PRINCIPALLY INTERESTED IN MY REFORM, AND WHO MAY 
LEARN SOMETHING FROM A PERUSAL OF MY STORY. 

R. D. 



STORY OF A STOMACH. 

PART THE FIRST. 

I. 

I remember a curious fable among the literary- 
recreations of my childhood, in which the various 
organs of the human body were made actors, — the 
Stomach being king and chief hero. The inability 
of any of these to exercise its function independ- 
ently of the central power, was happily shown ; 
and the repentant subjects, lately resolute rebels, 
were successfully reconstructed, and left in a state 
of active and healthy loyalty quite edifying to the 
admiring reader. 

The object of the fabulist seemed to be to illus- 
trate the doctrine of mutual dependence. To my 
mind, he taught much more ; and gave the great 
central organ a royal prominence which it were 
better for us always to acknowledge. 

In selecting the theme of my story, nobody 
will accuse me of pandering to popularity. The 
Stomach is not the fashion. Regnant though it be 
among its vital brotherhood, yet it can by no means 



6 IMPORTANCE OF THE STOMACH. 

be said to be a favorable subject for literary enthu- 
siasm. So far as I know, novelists never choose it 
as a basis for imaginative architecture ; nor do 
poets often idealize its sober history in stately iam- 
bics, or playfully illustrate its moods for the respon- 
sive lyre. 

When I consider our total dependence on its ac- 
tion for all that is effective and enjoyable, I confess 
some resentment of this neglect. Think what we 
owe to good digestion, and say if my impulse be not 
right. Without the vitality which it generates, 
not only would Reason flounder hopelessly in the 
mire of its own weakness, but even the poetic 
flames of Imagination would expire and leave but 
dead embers. All the admirable operations of body 
and brain find in the Stomach their origin and sup- 
port. History, Invention, Romance, Chivalry, Art, 
— all owe to the inspiration of health, their grand- 
est achievements, sublimest conceptions, most re- 
splendent glory, and most eloquent recital. Good 
digestion assisted Napoleon to the empire of Eu- 
rope ; its failure caused his first great defeat, and 
helped to rivet the chain that bound him to St. 
Helena. I imagine that Prometheus typifies a gas- 
tric calamity, and that the remorseless vulture which 
devoured his unfortunate liver, was emblematical 
of a perpetual dyspepsia. Fastened to Ms rock, 
he seems an antetype of the great Corsican, with 
the fatal cancer gnawing his vitals. Can you im- 
agine Pericles without a capable Stomach ? or a 



THE SOURCE OF VITALITY. 7 

dyspeptic Helen, in place of that glorious creature 
whose magnetism crazed two nations, and even 
convulsed the empire of the gods ? 

I affirm the Stomach to be one parent of all ex- 
cellent thought and action. Not only is the phys- 
ical health dependent on its integrity, but the moral 
also. It is the source whence the brain derives 
its power for clear thought, and the nerves and 
muscles for strong action. All outward causes of 
inspiration fail when opposed by its defection. A 
fit of colic will neutralize the finest effects of elo- 
quence ; and all the sublimities of Milton are but 
vapors when your nerves are torn with the head- 
ache occasioned by last night's debauch. On the 
other hand, when the Stomach is in full force, what 
prodigies of labor will the body perform ! what 
miracles of conception leap forth from the brain ! — 
a single large thought sometimes setting civiliza- 
tion ahead a full century. 

The arrogant brain is guilty of a usurpation of 
honors; and therein the Stomach hath great 
wrongs. In its appreciation, the reflective world 
of to-day is not fairly up to the mark of iEsop ; 
the sesthetic world knows not the Stomach at all ; 
and the world in general utterly fails to compre- 
hend the source of its immortal power. The 
strength generated by its fine alchemy is spent in 
searching all the dark corners of the universe for 
remote facts, which, when found, often prove but so 



8 DYSPEPSIA. 

much rubbish in the storehouses of knowledge. 
Instead of penetrating our own organic mysteries, 
a full comprehension of which would so greatly 
augment our power for achievement in all other 
departments of science, we contemptuously neglect 
the study of our vital mechanism, and ignore that 
cunning union of spirit and matter which affords 
the greatest miracle offered for our contemplation. 

To realize all this, we should suppose to be not 
only easy but inevitable. No one will deny that 
the finest nerves, the most highly organized brains, 
are dependent for much of their excellence upon 
perfect nutrition. Yet observe the ill-usage which 
we remorselessly lavish on the Stomach; stuffed, 
as it is liable to be to-day, with atrocious com- 
pounds of misdirected art, and, to-morrow, abso- 
lutely starved into exasperation, if not feebleness. 
Appetite, whim, fashion, and the fancied necessities 
of business, by turns become its tyrants. Seldom 
is it treated with the consideration due to its para- 
mount importance, till its functions become so im- 
paired by abuse as to disable it from fulfilling our 
unreasonable requirements. Its final exhaustion, 
entailing disorder and loss of power, and often 
acute wretchedness, on the entire system, compel a 
recognition of its rights, and an acknowledgment, 
in our persistent efforts toward amendments, of 
the singular folly of which we have been guilty. 
This acknowledgment is wrung from us by neces- 
sity ; and we consent to atone our errors, through 



EDUCATION OF THE STOMACH. 9 

a base homage to fear, when we perceive that our 
sins have invoked for our torment the presence of 
that impalpable but terrible demon — Dyspepsia. 

In curious illustration of our anxiety to ignore the 
rights of the Stomach, is the saying that we ought, 
in daily life, to be unconscious of its existence. As 
sensibly might a man ignore his eyes or ears. So 
common have the evils of indigestion become, that I 
suppose those who use this saying, regard a freedom 
from actual dyspeptic sufferings as the perfection of 
health. Of course the natural action of no organ 
ever causes discomfort ; but this negative blessing 
of exemption is not all that we are entitled to ask 
of that which should be a source of actual pleasure. 
Because the eye or ear is sometimes the seat of pain, 
who would therefore forego the delights of the 
nobler senses, and, content with a simple immunity 
from suffering, renounce the exquisite pleasure in- 
spired by a fine landscape, and the ravishment that 
thrills every nerve when Mezzolini or Morensi 
translates, by voice, the divine conceptions of the 
masters of song ? 

The truth is, the Stomach should always be so 
healthful as to make the exercise of its functions 
a source of positive enjoyment. To this end, 

Its education, in civilized life, should be made 
an art, like that of other organs, which we already 
recognize as fit subjects for sesthetic culture. 



10 EATING, A FINE ART. 

Unquestionably, in the estimation of men, the 
enjoyment of a good dinner ranks in importance 
with pleasures social and intellectual. We go to 
Delmonico's as we would visit the academies of 
Music and Design. To secure the gratification of 
this appetite we often submit to sacrifices the most 
severe. Rhetorically, we speak of "the feast of 
reason"; the very simile proving our high estimate 
of the sensuous repast. And when we consider its 
effect on us, — that on its composition and digestion 
depend the sustenance of the body, the serenity of 
the temper, and the electrical force of the mind, — 
I think we cannot resist the conclusion that the art 
of eating is a very fine art indeed ; and that its cult- 
ure is an object well worth the care of all who are 
compelled to use bodies as instruments of their 
souls, and to submit to the various influences which 
the condition of the former necessarily exercises on 
the education of the latter. 



II. 

I do not propose, however, any scientific treat- 
ment of a subject so large. These pages will con- 
stitute only a personal record, accompanied by 
hints and suggestions. The reader may have no- 
ticed that my first sentence began with that most 
self-estimable of personal pronouns, so often mag- 
nified by our vanity to proportions which over- 



WHY AN EGOTISM. 11 

shadow all its brotherhood ; and I am very sincere 
in declaring that I entertain the deliberate design 
of making its recurrence frequent and perpetual. 
My sketch is to relate to myself; and the conclu- 
sions given will mainly be such as have been de- 
rived from my own experiences. » 

It has been my fortune to lead a life of realities ; 
one identified with events so varied and tumultu- 
ous as to disable me, in general, from taking cog- 
nizance of facts not forced directly upon my notice. 
Living alternately in the East and the West ; some- 
times trifling with the dainty compositions of French 
cuisiniers, and sometimes dividing with the squatter 
on the prairie his meal of fried bacon and pearlash 
biscuit, or devouring, after the fashion of camps, 
the army ration which forms the common measure 
of every private soldier's stomach, and decides 
them all to be of the same regulation pattern ; 
doomed oftentimes to the martyrdom of travel by 
railway, where the only theory of the time-table 
is to make connections — (it never seeming to 
occur to the managers that eating is a primary 
necessity, existing long anterior to the invention of 
the steam-engine or the contrivance of tramways ;) 
subject, in short, to the most violent mutations of 
our adventurous American life, I have lavished 
upon my stomach the usual amount of ill-usage 
and suffered the customary retribution, through the 
affliction of dyspepsia in some or other of the va- 
rious disguises in which that many-visaged disorder 



12 PERIL IN INFANCY. 

delights to make its unwelcome masquerade. Thus, 
by a costly tuition, I think myself qualified to be- 
come a pedant in hygiene ; and as I believe the 
schooling to have been valuable, I desire to in- 
struct in turn (and by processes shorter and less 
rugged than those I followed) such unfortunates as 
may have suffered like myself, without, like me, 
having found and applied the remedy they desire. 



III. 

From the most reliable evidence I have been 
able to obtain in regard to an event not within the 
scope of my personal recollection, I was introduced 
into the world with a physical constitution equal, at 
least, to those of average babies at the same un- 
lucky period of existence. For two years — so run 
the traditions — every thing went well. In an evil 
hour, however, to remedy some slight derangement 
(which Nature, doubtless, if let alone, would speed- 
ily have removed), I was placed in charge of the 
very person, of all men in the world, who had the 
most direct and positive interest in keeping me 
ill, — namely, the family physician. In consequence, 
I was soon reduced to a condition of the greatest 
danger. Drugs had nearly done their work ; and 
the delicate organs of babyhood almost ceased to 
contend against the poisonous administrations of the 
regular practice. Presently, a conclave of doctors 



CHILDHOOD. 13 

was summoned ; a consultation of awful gravity en- 
sued ; and, by the voice of their united ignorance, 
my trembling life was solemnly dedicated to imme- 
diate destruction. This sentence, however, proved 
my salvation ; for, by the extinction of the profes- 
sional hope, I was relieved from further endurance 
of the fatal potions which had already begun to 
chill my little heart with the damps of the Stygian 
river. Nature was again left alone, to contend, as 
best she might, with the assaulting disease, fearfully 
reinforced by the foreign allies which a false science 
had introduced into the very citadel of her empire. 
For a whole week, my hesitating life trembled in 
the balance ; but at length Nature gained a sort of 
Antietam victory, and overcame the enemy after a 
fashion, though herself too terribly exhausted by 
the struggle to be able to gather the full fruits of 
her hard-won triumph. I recovered, indeed, but 
very slowly. My system had become enfeebled be- 
yond complete repair; and its pristine vigor was 
gone forever. I think of that period as one recalls 
the dim outlines of a sad, half-remembered dream. 
Back in the past, those earlier years of my sickly 
childhood seem like weary ages of another exist- 
ence. I remember myself growing slowly up, a 
puny and fragile boy; and it was not till I had 
painfully reached the age of sixteen years or there- 
abouts that I ventured even to hope for such a 
partial recovery of health as should fit me for the 
less laborious of those duties which manhood brings 
to all. 



14 DR. TRAIL. 

A feeble childhood generates quiet and sedentary 
tastes; and these, again, discourage the habits of 
activity so essential to health in this exacting pe- 
riod. Thus, I naturally became studious ; and nat- 
urally, too, my thoughts lingered on my condition, 
and dallied with every suggestion which offered a 
hope for its improvement. I was inevitably at- 
tracted by those modern theories which seek (in 
some respects not vainly} to supply in science the 
hiatus of a rational system of medicine. Much, 
even in this early period, did I become indebted to 
the reflective habits thus formed, and the frequent 
hints for the prevention of disease which I gleaned 
from miscellaneous sources and had the hardihood 
to test in practice. Yet, when I review those 
years, I vividly realize their profound ignorance ; 
and I can but marvel at the tenacity with which 
Nature adheres to her rights, and so often triumphs 
in her desperate contests with the combined forces 
of ignorance and folly. 

On reaching the stage of manhood, I entered 
upon it with far better health than I had dared to 
expect. The first five or six years were passed in 
quiet and studious pursuits. The consequence was 
nervous exhaustion ; and having finally learned the 
value of exercise from its deprivation, I changed 
my occupations to secure its benefits. About this 
time, too, I fell in with Dr. Trail's " Hydropathic 
Encyclopedia " ; a book of wonderful vigor and clear- 
ness, and marked by a thoroughness of professional 



AVERSIONS OF CHILDHOOD. 15 

study and a severity of logic, which render the 
more dangerous his admixture of some as plausible 
sophisms as ever captivated a willing fancy. From 
this book I know that I derived great benefit. 
Many of its maxims I interwove into my philosophy 
of health ; and many of its processes became reme- 
dies on which I learned to rely for deliverance from 
the spectre of dyspepsia already following my foot- 
steps. The valuable of these I still retain ; the 
worthless have perished in the ordeal of practice. 

For one fortunate circumstance I have reason to 
be profoundly grateful. After the disastrous ex- 
periment of my infancy, I was permitted to remain 
almost entirely free from the administration of 
drugs. Save the harmless simples sometimes pre- 
scribed by maternal anxiety, I became almost a 
stranger to the use of medicines. Whether from 
an early consciousness, inspired by hearing the le- 
gend of my narrow infantile escape rehearsed at 
an age when I was just able to divine its moral, 
though too young to retain the recollection of its 
recital ; or from some idiosyncratic instinct, inex- 
plicable by positive science — my first ability to 
manifest aversion was employed to show an inflexi- 
ble antagonism to those prescriptions by which doc- 
tors manage to fasten their income-tax upon the 
expenses of society. At the age of four years, I 
recollect suffering intolerable agony from the dread 
of vaccination at the hands of a portly gentleman 
with saddle-bags, in whose benignant aspect I 



16 A JUVENILE VICTORY. 

seemed to discover all the malice of the great ene- 
my of our race ; and at eight, I obstinately rejected 
the inevitable quinine, which my original evil gen- 
ius, the family physician, sought to force down my 
rebellious throat while I was suffering the miseries 
of a detestable ague. I have always felt disposed 
to celebrate the result as a great triumph : for I 
actually carried my point in spite of the professional 
and family league formed against me ; and I had 
the grim satisfaction of " wearing out " the disease 
during six mortal weeks of alternating chills and 
fever fits, and, in this way, of achieving a perma- 
nent cure, as well as of gaining a moral victory 
over the doctor and his allies. These last were 
certain members of my own family whose experi- 
ence, I thought, should have taught them better ; 
for they had themselves followed medical treatment 
for the same disease till it had reduced them to a 
condition in which they suffered about equal evils 
from the recurrence of the disorder and the ill ef- 
fects of the drugs. But, on the whole, my father's 
family had no great faith in Materia Medica; so 
that I was spared many perils which, otherwise, I 
might have been obliged to encounter. 

Gradually, as a means of relief from the evils of 
indigestion, mainly manifested in general debility 
and frequent violent headaches, I came to depend 
upon a tolerably careful diet, and a plentiful use of 
water in the various modes prescribed by the oracles 
of hygeopathic science. I am now aware of having 



EEYG1ENIC HABITS. 17 

sometimes employed the latter unwisely ; as, for 
instance, when I once for some weeks overdid 
the application of a morning shower-bath (rashly 
allowed to fall on the head) while lacking the in- 
herent vitality, and neglecting the active subse- 
quent exercise, required to produce the necessary 
reaction and restore to the blood its indispensable 
vigor of circulation. (To show how truly circum- 
stances do alter cases, I will state that now I can 
use the same shower daily, with the most gratify- 
ing effects.) I am certain, also, that at times I 
reduced my diet to a point too low to replace the 
waste of the system and maintain its strength. But 
I believe that my general course was judicious ; 
and it is to the habits thus formed and rigidly prac- 
ticed, of abstaining from the free use of medicines 
as well as of stimulants — especially alcohol and 
tobacco — during the formative period, that I at- 
tribute the ability developed later in life to over- 
come the grave difficulties to which I was earlier 
subjected. Nature not having been enfeebled by a 
too constant contest with medical and stimulating 
poisons, has thus been enabled to bear the burden 
of other bad habits, and even to accumulate strength 
with which to second my more recent efforts in be- 
half of the long-suffering Stomach, and, consequen- 
tially, of the whole system. 



18 FORTY YEARS OLD. 



IV. 



It was under these circumstances that I ap- 
proached my fortieth year ; — a sort of half-way point 
in the journey of life, most suggestive to the reflect- 
ive mind, and calculated to produce an important 
influence upon habits not already unchangeable. 
Like Omar, I had my little programme formed 
for life. I had always looked forward to this age 
as one which must bring me comparative rest. In 
reaching it, I had said, I shall have passed the crisis 
of business affairs, and be able to command the ne- 
cessary time for recreation and self-improvement ; 
and my leisure shall be employed in enriching my 
mind by the study of books, by travel, and by 
those artistic and social pleasures which bring a 
charm to the passing moment, while they impress 
us with lessons of enduring value. The plan was 
well enough, though fate seriously interfered with its 
consummation. The pinnacle of life rightly reached, 
what supreme pleasures may it not overlook ! — a 
past well spent in the execution of wise and be- 
neficent plans and dotted all along with successful 
results ; a future to which hope, like the setting sun, 
lends its loveliest glow, and among whose fruited 
years we may gather the rewards which earlier toils 
and passions disabled us from reaching. In pictur- 
ing my descent down this flowery path, into the 
tranquil valley of age, I had not been unmindful 
of the inevitable decay of health ; and had even 



DYSPEPSIA. 19 

permitted myself to contemplate the possibility of 
a moderate resort to those physical stimulants, which 
then, if ever, can be made useful in the economy of 
the system. But as I approached the climacteric, 
I perceived indications of exhaustion which excited 
my alarm. A winter of extreme labor and anxiety 
was followed by symptoms of dyspepsia more marked 
than I had experienced for years. In vain I re- 
ported to the most approved practices of hydropa- 
thy ; fruits and coarse breads were made to supply 
the place of concentrated foods at breakfast, while 
my dinner was subjected to equal care in both 
quality and amount. Tea and coffee I entirely 
abolished, as well as condiments generally, and all 
known stimulants. Exercise in walking and rid- 
ing I took with what freedom is permitted by city 
life. All was in vain. As the spring found me, so 
did it leave me; and I entered on the summer 
with a conviction that I must seek a life in the 
country, and by a total change of habits, rescue 
myself forcibly from the deadly grasp that seemed 
fastening upon my very vitals. 

Apparently, I was not disabled from ordinary 
labor, but went to my office daily, and seemingly 
performed the duties of a man in health. But my 
energies were enfeebled and my spirits depressed ; 
my existence seemed robbed of its pleasure and my 
mind of its power. The food I ate was slowly and 
imperfectly digested ; and I suffered an immense 
diminution of that vitality which is the motor of 



20 THE STOMACH MUTINOUS. 

the animal machine, and without which the ma- 
chine itself loses its capacity for functional perform- 
ance. Instead of the prompt and cheerful re- 
sponse which a healthful and well-trained stomach 
always makes to the proper introduction of appro- 
priate food, that organ, in this case, seemed reso- 
lutely bent on following a line of behavior which it 
is almost divine charity to characterize as mutinous 
and perverse. At times, the food eaten would be al- 
lowed to remain for hours without a sign of hospi- 
table welcome ; while at others, absolute objection 
was made to its presence, and, instead of the sweet 
influences which the digestive juices should have 
lavished lovingly upon it, they assumed an in- 
tensely acid and acrid character, to the great scan- 
dal of my physiological system, and the serious 
interruption of the entire animal economy. So 
general had this condition become, that an occa- 
sional variation in favor of healthy digestion was 
a novelty. In fact, had it continued, I do not 
know but the abnormal might so far have triumphed 
over the natural, as to generate a sombre satisfac- 
tion in the conscious possession of a phenomenal pe- 
culiarity to distinguish me from my kind ; so that, 
presently, I might have come to regard my Stom- 
ach with a morbid admiration something akin to the 
curious regard which wonder-mongers manifest for 
unnatural monstrosities, like bearded women and 
two-headed calves. 



A CRISIS. 21 



V. 

This period brought a crisis in my physical his- 
tory ; and the turn was accomplished thus. A 
friend, whose enormous financial and constructive 
labors, not unknown to .fame, had disordered his 
digestion, and who was my usual morning compan- 
ion " down-town," astonished me, during one of 
those matutinal trips, by insisting on vacating his 
seat in a Madison Avenue stage, and calling at 
a fruiterer's, opposite the Metropolitan Hotel, to pro- 
cure a prescription ordered by his physician. Not 
to lose his society, I also surrendered my place to 
a surprised and delighted candidate poised patiently 
on the steps, and followed my friend into the shop 
aforesaid ; in no way comprehending, I confess, 
how a vender of fruits and confections was expect- 
ed to develop the ability to prepare a medical com- 
pound, but willing, nevertheless, to wait and ob- 
serve whatever new manifestation of human eccen- 
tricity I might be destined to discover. But the 
shopman seemed not at all disconcerted by the re- 
quirement made on his skill ; and I readily com- 
prehended the reason, when I found that the reme- 
dy which Dr. C. had prescribed for my friend, was 
simply a package of peach-pits. The order was 
filled with commendable alacrity, and the service 
embellished with the most emphatic indorsements 
of the efficacy of the curious remedy, which the 
seller, with a vivacity verging on enthusiasm, pro- 



22 PEACH-PITS. 

nounced absolutely sure to overcome any case of 
dyspepsia, if faithfully used for a reasonable period 
of trial. Of thi& article, as merchandise, I had 
never before even heard, though conscious of a dim 
impression that the concocters of hygienic bitters of 
various sorts, used peach-pits to give a tonic char- 
acter to their preparations. (And since that time, 
I may remark in passing, I have often endeavored, 
and generally in vain, to procure them in other 
large cities, and even in other places in New York.) 
It appears that the peach-pits are a favorite pre- 
scription with Dr. C. for his dyspeptic patients ; 
and that his reliance for a supply, was upon this 
vender of fruits and confections, who made it a 
point always to have them on sale. So confident 
was the honest man's assertion in their favor, that 
I was quite impressed by his statements ; and, giv- 
ing way incontinently to the pressure of his dec- 
lamation, I hastened to follow the example of my 
friend, and invest in their purchase a note of U. S. 
fractional currency, purporting to be of the legal 
monetary valuation of fifty cents ; and for which 
representative amount, I secured a supply of the 
precious prescriptive pits, sufficient for at least two 
full weeks of faithful administration. The direc- 
tion was simply to eat them, one or more at a time, 
to the extent of say a dozen or two in a day ; — a 
requirement easy of fulfillment, as it scarcely de- 
manded the exercise of either perseverance or self- 
denial. 



AN IMPROVEMENT. 23 

Now, the philosophical operations of this remedy 
I do not propose to discuss ; it not being essential 
to my purpose, which is accomplished with the 
simple statement of its effects. To be quite candid 
with a reader between whom and myself I very 
much desire to establish and maintain confidential 
relations, I am thoroughly ignorant of its chemical 
nature. I have heard dreadful hints that the little 
germ of vitality enveloped in the peach-stone, is rich 
in the fatal possession of Prussic Acid ; and I con- 
fess to have thrilled and shuddered under a sense 
of mingled admiration and terror when I read, one 
day, that splendid apotheosis of the Peach, where the 
brilliant authoress of " Azarian " speaks of " the 
subtly sweet poison at its heart." But I here close 
my eyes resolutely to all the deductions of logic, and 
the fearful whispers of chemical admonition ; for I 
ate the article experimentally, and not on scientific 
principles, and, having realized from its use un- 
equivocal benefits, do not care a doit if it shall be 
found by analysis to contain all the deadly influ- 
ences concentrated in the fatal poison of the Borgias. 
As its use was followed by an immediate and decid- 
ed improvement in the temper and action of my 
Stomach, it is impossible that I shall refuse to 
credit it with a large agency in this change. Alone, 
it might not have been able to accomplish an abso- 
lute cure ; but, as a means of restoring tone to the 
digestive organs, and thus inaugurating a complete 
reform in their action, I concede to it an almost 
miraculous efficacy. 



24 QUANTRELL. 

I will add, here, that I have since found similar 
results from the use of the Bitter Almond ; and I 
am inclined to the belief that there is no material 
difference in the remedial effects of the two seeds. 



VI. 

Very soon after my commencement with the 
peach-pits, I was again obliged to go West on busi- 
ness ; and a period of autumnal travel in a de- 
lightful prairie region, with abundant activity and 
variety of manual exercise, doubtless aided greatly 
in their good effect. I do not, indeed, precisely 
see how it could produce hygienic benefit for me 
to pass through the hands of that terrible type of 
diabolism, the guerilla Quantrell, and to witness the 
murder of a hundred and fifty defenceless men 
and boys, and the unprovoked destruction of their 
homes, over the heads of their families, as was my 
painful destiny during that journey; and I am 
sure, from experience, that, to feel for six hours, in 
the midst of carnage and conflagration, as I did at 
Lawrence, Kansas, on that fearful 21st of August, 
that the tossing of a copper would fitly indicate my 
own chances between life and death, is not favora- 
ble to that serenity of mind which I believe to be 
essential to perfect digestion ; but, setting aside 
these disagreeable incidents, I am able fully to ap- 
preciate the advantages to health derivable from 



PRAIRIE LIFE. 25 

the novelty, the exercise, the change of diet, the 
free respiration of a stimulating air, inseparable 
from a wagon-trip over the rolling plains of a coun- 
try like Kansas. Such a trip, enjoyed during the 
most delightful days of autumn, in a region where 
autumn is not only surpassingly lovely in itself, but 
where its resplendent beauties were tempered by 
the virginal freshness of youth, may well give to 
the physical life such an impulse as will thoroughly 
re-tone all its faculties, in spite of the few startling 
experiences I have named. In this case, I am 
sure that the favorable influence was no way les- 
sened by my good companionship ; and I credit as 
hygienic the spectacular effects produced on me by 
Indian holiday shows, and by those barbaric rites 
by which the former lords of the continent simulate 
a traditionary power, and seek to impress their 
white masters with the grandeur of a nationality 
long since trodden into helplessness beneath the 
heel of a ruthless civilization. At all events, in 
spite of Quantrell and much atrocious cookery, and 
nights by no means free from the depredations of 
vermin not less sanguinary, if less dangerous, than 
the guerillas, I returned from the expedition late 
in October, greatly improved in general health. 
This advantage, however, was seriously diminished 
by a closing ride of many days and nights by rail ; 
and the residue was not sufficient to withstand a 
temporary incarceration to which I was condemned 
in a boarding-house where the diet was distasteful 
and the society uncongenial. And this leads me 



26 A CHANGE OF BASE. 

to say a word in deprecation of the mercenary and 
indifferent spirit which usually governs these cheap 
substitutes for homes. We must advance the stand- 
ard of living ; and, by showing a willingness liberally 
to pay for a higher grade of accommodation, induce 
the employment, in the boarding-house business, of 
a grade of talent such as any intelligent and well- 
bred man would require in a housekeeper, or even 
a wife. I know, from a varied experience, that my 
own chances for health are greatly increased when- 
ever I am able to enjoy the comforts of my home ; 
and I regard it as not the most trifling of the testi- 
monials due to its feminine " head centre," that 
her virtues embrace the perceptions of fitness and 
taste necessary to its satisfactory management. 



VII. 

Short as was this last boarding-house era, it pro- 
duced a marked recurrence of my old symptoms, 
and I speedily made an opportunity to effect a 
change. A seemingly fateful series of accidents 
and incidents resulted in my domestication for the 
remainder of the autumn and the whole of the fol- 
lowing winter, in a private family where the foot- 
ing was social rather than mercenary, and where 
all the previous unfavorable conditions were ex- 
actly reversed. Here the diet was nutritious and 
appetizing without being gross ; the food was well 



REQUIREMENTS OF CLIMATE. 27 

selected and well cooked ; and the meals were 
served with taste and embellished with a conversa- 
tional charm sufficient to invest the plainest repast 
with the luxurious gusto of an Apician feast. This 
family belonged essentially to the genus of good liv- 
ers ; and its esprit absolutely forbade the exercise of 
a rigid dietary. Its head was a lady of English birth 
and breeding, accustomed to the enjoyment of ta- 
ble pleasures ; and, made defiant by robust health, 
she had always alternated the intellectual pleasures 
which she was well fitted to create and enjoy, with 
a reckless indulgence of her appetite for high liv- 
ing. This appetite it had never occurred to her to 
restrain on emigrating to America. The trans- 
plantation of dietetic habits is always an error ; 
these, like the natural productions intended to 
maintain them, should always grow from the con- 
ditions of the country. It were as sensible for a 
traveler to the tropics, to provide himself with a 
wardrobe of furs, or for a pilgrim to the North 
Pole, to sail into the shadow of icebergs, clad in a 
costume adapted to equatorial heats, as for the na- 
tives of any region, on removing to another meteoro- 
logically its opposite, to insist on retaining their old 
modes of life. In this case, my friend had brought 
from lymphatic England those sensuous habits quite 
suitable to its moist atmosphere, where temper- 
ature aids temperament, and out-door exercise 
strengthens both ; but in attempting to practice 
them in our drier and more stimulating climate, 
she had gradually undermined her physical consti- 



28 CHANGE OF DIET. 

tution, and made compulsory a wholesome modera- 
tion in Epicurian enjoyments. Her voluptuous 
nature had been so tempered by encroaching in- 
firmities, as to reduce her present practice to the 
golden medium essential to the health. A diet 
equally removed from grossness and poverty, I 
am now aware to be most conducive to the con- 
servation of that chiefest of physical blessings ; and 
I cannot repress an impulse of thankfulness when- 
ever I remember that, since that era, I have not 
experienced as much inconvenience altogether from 
dyspepsia as I had often suffered before in a single 
month. 

The lessons which I learned here, were, to a 
great extent, involuntary. The circumstances in 
which I was placed, seemed insensibly to compel 
the abandonment of my more rigid practices. The 
breakfast-steak — tender, warm, and done to a turn 
— at once assumed an unwonted prominence in the 
operations of that meal ; the delicious rolls and 
buckwheats unceremoniously displaced the coarse 
breads which I had before regarded as a necessity ; 
and the real coffee completely supplanted my usual 
aqueous draught, so charming as we read of it in 
pastoral idyls, — so chilling when we drink it on a 
winter's morning, shivering with the mercury at 
zero. This breakfast was not only eaten : it was 
enjoyed. Under the admirable influences which 
it exercised, even Cornaro, stern ascetic as he was, 
must have proved infidel to the faith on which 
rested the last two thirds of his mortal century. 



FORMULA FOR DYSPEPTICS. 29 

The results of this change were as gratifying as 
they were surprising. I found myself relieved 
from the heaviness and torpidity which had op- 
pressed me. I again experienced the comfortable 
consciousness of good digestion, and began to glory 
in the realization of increasing vitality and strenght ; 
which increase I could feel to be reacting on my 
spirits and intellect. My hearty breakfast permit- 
ted but the slightest lunch, if any ; and the even- 
ing brought an appetite for dinner commensurate 
with the preparations made for its satisfaction. 
Faithfully and kindly did the reconciled Stomach, 
approving the new regime, sustain the reformatory 
measures which I had instituted in its behalf and 
my own ; and the ready and uniform flow of its 
gastric juices attested the fact that I had finally en- 
tered on a course which Nature was eager to ap- 
prove and bless, and ready to sustain with all the 
powers which the mal-practice of the doctors and 
my own abuses had permitted her to preserve. 

These chief incidents of reform were attended 
with others which I shall presently describe. But 
I wish first to formularize my grand lesson in diet- 
ary science ; — a lesson not new, and one scarcely 
needed by those who are thoroughly healthful, but 
which those who do need it, seem most resolved 
not to learn ; namely, that 

An abundant, generous diet is the one best adapted 
a feeble digestion. 



— — „„, ^„. 

to a feeble digestion 



30 PEACH-PITS AGAIN. 

For the utterance of this dogma, I know I shall 
incur the anathema? of the Hygeopathic hier- 
archy ; but I have advanced so far in my dissen- 
tient career that I can afford to disregard the ful- 
minations of medical Protestantism as well as those 
of medical Papacy. 



VIII. 

This seems to me the proper place to conclude 
what I have to say of the peach-pits which played 
so important a part in initiating my recovery. I 
used them as medicine ; and, as medicine, I aban- 
doned them with the return of health. When the 
house is repaired, the scaffold is no longer needed, 
and should be removed. It is now about three 
and a half years since I first tested their efficacy ; 
and I continued their habitual use only about a 
year. Like any other medicine, they should be 
put aside as soon as the effect is produced. Occa- 
sionally, to be sure, (such is the tenacity of consti- 
tutional morbidness and the tyranny of bad old 
habits) when, from over-indulgence or irregular- 
ity or neglect, I feel recurring symptoms — for, 
alas ! though the spirit is willing, the flesh is often 
very weak — I return to them for a day or so ; but 
this necessitated return is a penalty for the infringe- 
ment of hygienic laws which I have expensively 
learned, but am not wise enough always to obey. 



PEACH-PITS AGAIN. 31 

Medicines should not be made a constant neces- 
sity. While daily habits cannot well be too 
regular in civilized life, the use of remedies should 
be rare and exceptional ; and while the former 
should become as much a part of routine, as sitting 
when we eat or reclining when we sleep, the latter 
can be employed with scarcely too much caution or 
infrequency. 



PART THE SECOND. 

I. 

In my narrative, I alluded to certain principles 
and habits which I deem of hygienic importance. 
Some of these I desire to consider more at length, 
offering, with them, the general conclusions of my 
experience and practice. 

I shall not dwell upon those canons of health 
with which even our school-children are supposed 
to be familiar. Everybody, for instance, is expected 
to know in a general way, that sedentary habits ren- 
der necessary an especial respect for daily exercise, 
pure air, and cleanliness. At points like these, I 
shall do little more than hint ; employing my limited 
space in suggestions less familiar. 



II. 

In considering the subject of health, as affected 
by habits, we must first clarify our ideas in regard 
to its relations with society. Many of our medical 
reformers cloud the general liberality of their views 
by an assumption that civilization is its enemy. My 



CIVILIZATION THE FRIEND OF HEALTH. 33 

own belief is exactly the reverse. Statistics conclu- 
sively show that, among nations, the average of life 
rises with the elevation of the social standard. Of 
course, each state of society is subject to its peculiar 
vices, against which civilization is forced to contend ; 
but these, fearful and disgusting as they appear in 
contrast with their beautiful surroundings, are im- 
potent to neutralize the advantages which Chris~ 
tianity and art are accumulating on our race. 

While, therefore, sedentary habits and passional 
excesses are powerful auxiliaries of disease, yet 
cleanliness, regularity, good houses, and abundant 
food are stronger re enforcements on the side of 
health. Unquestionably, the digestive organs are 
great sufferers from the evils of civilization ; and, 
all other things being equal, health would be much 
better in a condition of primitive simplicity than 
when dependent on the complex and artificial sys- 
tems of enlightened nations. But civilization, if it 
be true, brings with it remedies for all its especial 
evils, while it discards all the especial evils of bar- 
barism, and replaces them with unquestioned bless- 
ings. It is the sum of beneficent art ; and the aim 
of its disciples should be, to make life as artistic as 
possible ; securing every advantage of intelligence, 
with which to adorn and strengthen those of Nature. 
No exercise of art can be more legitimate than the 
improvement and preservation of health, on which 
life itself depends. An understanding and applica- 
tion of principles, here, is as important and effica- 



34 A GRAVE ERROR EXPOSED. 

cious as though the object were to perfect a ma- 
chine or carve a statue. 

The Hygeopathists have undertaken to treat the 
subject of health rationally, and have promulgated 
many important truths ; but their system is based on 
error, and fails in its results. They attempt to graft 
the inferior scion upon a superior stock, and so get 
a very unsatisfactory fruit. Reverting to the prim- 
itive status of the race, they ignore the effects and 
requirements of intellectual advancement. Con- 
demning the Stomach of a highly organized man, to 
the coarse regimen of the ox, they infer that the re- 
sult must be to secure for it the ox's digestion. If 
such, could be the result, it would also tend to bring 
down the man's brain to the same bovine coarseness 
and feebleness. 

No ; the hygienic philosophy which draws its 
illustrations from peasant life, is of necessity inap- 
plicable to a class which labors chiefly , with its 
brain. It is not the coarseness of the bread of the 
Russian serf which gives him strength ; it is his ex- 
ercise and his out-door life. Such are the tonics of 
Nature ; and their use, so far as possible, should be 
retained in all conditions ; but growth must be pro- 
moted and waste repaid, also ; and to do these is 
the office of food. If the growth and waste are 
mainly muscular, the food may be coarse and the 
man be strong ; but if they be of the brain and 
nerves, the food must be correspondingly better, or 



THE GOSPEL OF HEALTH. 35 

brain and nerves will fail. And if (as is generally 
the case where brain-work predominates) plentiful 
exercise and respiration are neglected, the muscular 
system and all organs of the body will likewise be- 
come enfeebled, and general debility will result. 

The fact that physical labor taxes the system less 
than mental, is partially realized by many. We 
know that the student needs more sleep than the 
journeyman blacksmith ; he also needs more nutri- 
ment. So with the statesman in his closet, the mer- 
chant in his counting-room, and the clerk at his desk ; 
neither can endure coarse food or scant sleep as 
well as the hunter among his hills or the farmer 
in his fields. The sedentary life, lacking Nature's 
tonics, impairs the digestion ; and it logically fol- 
lows that the food should be easier of assimilation. 
When habits of labor are artificial, we should call 
on art to remedy their evils. Every theory of 
dietetic reform must be worthless, whose conclu- 
sions would lead us down to 'the lower conditions of 
the race, instead of upward. 

The reverse of such a theory should shape the 
system of the true reformer. In the progress of 
civilization, we substitute intellectual for physical 
pursuits, and should study how to preserve the 
muscular power unimpaired, while increasing that 
of the brain. With faith in progress, and admira- 
tion for art, we should support every advance with 
confidence, knowing that its consequence must be 



36 THE QUALITY OF FOOD. 

an increase of power. Were it otherwise, barba- 
rism only could endure ; and to civilize a people 
would be to doom them to extinction. Any rea- 
soning, no matter what its premises, which leads to 
conclusions like these, is not only absurd but irre- 
ligious. 



m. 

The quality of the food we eat becomes a ques- 
tion of grave import. 

The Hygeopathist will recommend to the dys- 
peptic a diet of bran-bread, fruits, and the coarser 
roots and plants. All animal substances he pro- 
hibits, and looks coldly upon those grains and fruits 
which are most nutritious and easily digested. The 
human Stomach, taxed to provide for the waste of 
a weary brain and over-wrought nerves, he con- 
demns to the same material which is furnished to 
that of a horse, which has to supply a demand for 
muscle alone. 

It is only as you descend in the social scale that 
such a recommendation approaches reason ; as you 
rise, it- becomes mischievous. We now know why 
the Scotch peasant may thrive on his bannock, and 
the Irishman subsist on potatoes; but a diet so 
meagre would have sent Humboldt ungarlanded to 
his grave in middle age. 



THE VEGETARIAN FALLACY. 37 

The great argument in favor of a meagre diet is, 
that it supplies sufficient bulk without excess of 
nourishment. Thus, it is claimed, is the Stomach 
filled, and yet relieved of the labor of digesting 
more nutriment than the system demands. In the 
latter part of this assumption lies ambushed a most 
dangerous error ; for the very quality of food thus 
used to give bulk, is the most difficult of all to di- 
gest, and imposes upon the feeble Stomach an oner- 
ous and distasteful duty, while it supplies a nourish- 
ment totally inadequate to the labor required. In 
effect, it is an increase of work and a diminution 
of wages. The direct object of food is to produce 
blood ; and if innutritious, the blood will be impov- 
erished, and the digestive powers made to share 
the enfeeblement of the whole system. In select- 
ing our food, therefore, we should study the rela- 
tions of nutriment, waste, and digestibility, so that 
the blood may be sufficiently enriched without im- 
posing needless labor on the Stomach ; and in esti- 
mating these proportions, we must consider the 
•habits of the individual. Here is a frequent source 
of error. The Vegetarians do not realize that the 
man of inactive physical habits, but whose work is 
with the brain, needs more nutrition than the com- 
mon laborer, at the same time that his digestion is 
feebler. And inasmuch as brain is more valuable 
than muscle, — finer, more critical in every sense, 
— so must we use costlier food for its nourishment, 
and apply more skill and care — superior art, in 
short — in the selection. By supplying a richer 



38 KINDS OF FOOD. 

and more digestible regimen, we must at the same 
time meet the high demands of the mental and 
nervous systems, and reduce the labor of the weak- 
ened Stomach. 

I 
By no means do I reject vegetable foods. On 
the contrary, I consider them indispensable. Fur- 
nishing, as they do, every degree of nutrition and 
digestibility, I do not doubt that a Stomach trained 
to their use can be kept in perfect health. But 
habit becomes second nature ; and so long as soci- 
ety adheres to a mixed diet, no dyspeptic who sits 
at its tables can profitably discriminate to the utter 
rejection of meats. 

The hinds of food, within these limits, is a matter 
of less moment. The appetite, in a healthy person, 
will usually be a safe guide. When morbid, or 
pampered by stimulants and aristological enormi- 
ties, its instincts are less true, and should be assisted 
by the judgment. Nature, in offering for man's 
use her immense variety of food, has recognized 
and provided for the different and varying wants of 
his system, and given the widest scope for individ- 
ual selection. Stomachs equally healthy, will dif- 
ferently relish different foods, and digest them with 
different degrees of ease. To one, beef may be 
congenial, to another, mutton ; and it is even pos- 
sible that some strong and ill-educated organs may 
develop an affinity for pork, though, for the health 
of the race, as well as the credit of the individual, 



SELECTION OF FOOD. 39 

I should hope that such instances are rare. So, 
too, some digest fine breads too readily, and re- 
quire a coarse material on which to exercise their 
coarser powers. Some are found quite averse to 
milk ; while others seem incapable of dealing with 
the crude fibre of the less digestible vegetables. 

But as a rule, the delicate Stomach should be- 
ware of fats — especially if not entirely sweet. Rich 
gravies levy a fearful tax on its powers, and rancid 
oils are absolutely poisonous. Fried dishes, there- 
fore, should be regarded with general disfavor ; and 
the use of unwholesome butter, even in cooking, as 
an abomination. Condiments, as well as tea and 
coffee and all other stimulants, should be used with 
sparing rigor, so that, in periods of disability, when 
Nature seems to need a little awakening, their 
effect may be the better. 

Thus it would seem that, of all the gifts ten- 
dered to man for his subsistence, none are to be 
absolutely rejected, though selection, since it is ab- 
solutely impossible to use them all, may be made a 
means of benefit. Each individual is by nature 
the best judge of his own requirements ; and the 
sounder common sense and higher skill he brings 
to aid the choice, the better will it be for himself 
and for society. 



40 QUANTITY OF FOOD. 



IV. 



I have never seen the subject of quantity, in 
food, treated as seems to befit its importance. It 
is true that all now concede the necessity of bulk 
to accomplish the distension of the Stomach when 
digestion begins ; but the argument is but half 
made, and often conducted to erroneous conclu- 
sions. 

Wherever Nature has provided for muscular ac- 
tion, in a vital organ as well as in a limb, such ac- 
tion should be encouraged ; otherwise, debility, if 
not disease, will be sure to result. Disuse the eye, 
the ear, the arm, and its powers decay. The heart 
derives a regular exercise in its action on the blood ; 
the lungs do the same in breathing ; the Stomach 
should do the same in digestion. A partial failure 
in either case produces disease ; a total one, death. 

Thus we see the importance of the muscular 
system of the Stomach. It cannot act with vigor, 
except that organ is fully distended ; it cannot 
thoroughly repose, except after complete collapse. 
In order, therefore, to secure the regular periods 
of action and repose which the health of the Stom- 
ach demands, we must provide for it regular periods 
of fullness and depletion. This important principle 
lies at the very foundation of good digestion in sed- 
entary life. 



EXERCISE OF TEE STOMACH. 41 

The process should be not only regular, but grad- 
ual. The empty Stomach should not be rudely 
awakened and violently distended by the abrupt de- 
posit of a large quantity of food ; but should be 
quietly, slowly enlarged by its introduction, till 
completely filled. This distension liberates the di- 
gestive fluids which flow forth upon the mass ; and 
the faithful muscles commence that peristaltic action 
upon the food which ends only in its complete com- 
mixture and expulsion. As the organ has been 
gradually enlarged, so is it contracted in the same 
manner ; and the labor of the occasion being over, 
it renews a period of rest only to be terminated by 
the awakening of hunger or the introduction of 
fresh food. If the latter — if it shall be required 
to recommence work before its strength is fully 
restored — a derangement to some extent ensues ; 
but if not interfered with until a proper interval 
has passed, it returns to its task with original vigor, 
and health is preserved. 

That food should be made fine and thoroughly 
salivated before being swallowed, all admit ; and 
this necessity makes the operation of eating, grad- 
ual, as it should be to meet the muscular re- 
quirement of the Stomach. And in the simple 
statements here made, we find a key to the mys- 
tery of nutrition. Distension and contraction are 
the chief exercise of the stomach, and must recur 
regularly and gradually, and to the extreme limit. 
The food must be made fine before going into the 



42 EATING BETWEEN MEALS. 

Stomach ; and an interval of absolute repose must 
be granted to the digestive organs before asking 
them to renew- their labors. While in a natural, 
out-door life, these principles are less necessary to 
be observed, in an artificial one they are essential. 

This theory of taking food only in quantity, is 
fatal to the childish practice of eating between 
meals. Before growth is attained, the periods must 
be more frequent ; but in adults, there is great dan- 
ger of their recurring too often. It were more 
sensible to take our sleep in little snatches, than our 
food. Unless the Stomach be filled, the expansion 
is but partial, the digestion imperfect ; and after it 
is filled, no impertinent interruption should occur. 
Not till digestion is over, and the organ refreshed 
by repose, should the process be repeated ; and the 
Stomach will then be as eager to welcome it, as a 
fresh horse, liberated from his stall, is anxious for 
work or frolic. 

To enjoy health, the sedentary man must sternly 
resist all temptations for infringing this law. Very 
much of my own improvement, I attribute to an 
utter abandonment of the habit of eating fruits and 
lunches and confections, on rail-cars and in other 
places subject to irregularities. With the return 
of health, and the disuse of the custom, I find the 
appetite easily held in check. 

How often the Stomach should be thus exercised 



LATE DINNERS. 43 

in the work of digestion, is a question on which 
people will always differ. Obviously, the less fre- 
quent the meals, the larger will be the quantity 
taken at once, the more thorough the distension of 
the organ, and the longer the interval of repose. 
The argument strongly favors very full meals, taken 
at very long intervals. My own judgment approves 
but two during the day ; breakfast, before our chief 
labors begin ; dinner, after they close. As for the 
mid-day lunch, I am compelled to agree with Dr. 
Dixon in calling it " pernicious." 

This plan too, with the fitness which should al- 
ways exist between natural requirements and artifi- 
cial habits, is admirably adapted to the customs of 
cities. Here, to eat in the middle of the day is, 
with most, to eat little, or in great haste. Morning 
and evening are, as they should be, the periods of 
leisure ; and the great duty of eating should then 
be performed, when we have time to regard the re- 
quirements of decency and health. 

Some will object to the late dinner, on the ground 
that digestion cannot be complete before bed-time, 
and that the repose of the general system should 
include that of the involuntary muscles. The first 
reason I deny, and the second I am not prepared to 
admit. A Stomach which has had no demands 
made on it between the hours of seven or eight in 
the morning and five or six in the evening, will 
grapple its task with such power that a very few 



44 DIGESTION AND SLEEP. 

hours will finish it. But I am not sure about phys- 
ical rest being unfavorable to digestion. The old 
adage said to us, " After dinner rest awhile ; " and 
sleep certainly would not be any worse than severe 
labor. The Stomach needs a large amount of the 
blood, while active ; and either physical or mental 
labor withdraws it to other parts. The chill we 
sometimes feel after a full meal, shows how Nature 
works. So, too, the brain should be relieved of the 
blood during -sleep, and I am not sure that the 
Stomach is not a good field for the employment of 
that fluid while the nervous system is at rest. At all 
events, if digestion shall have been half completed 
by bed-time, I have no fears of the other half. 

We find a curious illustration of inconsistent 
practice in our treatment of ourselves and our 
horses. The organization and diseases of this ani- 
mal, and the effect on him of artificial habits, are 
so like our own, as to render our necessities measur- 
ably the same. But what ostler is so ignorant as 
to choose to give his horse his heaviest feed on the 
eve of severe work ? and what intelligent teamster 
would push his cattle to their speed, immediately 
after eating their grain ? 

Gentle exercise I believe to aid digestion, by as- 
sisting the muscular action of the Stomach, while it 
does not interfere with any process. If associated 
with pleasant thoughts, the aid will be still greater. 
This is an additional argument in favor of the late 



HOW TO EAT DINNER. 45 

dinner, as the evening is our only reliable time for 
pleasure and recreation. 

Breakfast may be followed by labor without in- 
jury, unless it be too severe on the brain, and such 
as to induce a cramped position of the Stomach. 
The bodily powers are so strong at that hour, that 
both digestion and work can proceed together ; 
more especially as the morning meal is much lighter 
than the other. But to dispose of the dinner, which 
is the chief reliance of the system for restoration, 
we must give the Stomach more advantage. " The 
dinner," well says Emerson, " is the capital thing." 
Eaten at five or six o'clock, with the labors of the 
day over and the mind at rest, with the time un- 
limited by engagements, so that mastication and 
salivation may be complete, and accompanied and 
followed as it should be, by pleasing social influ- 
ences, it becomes a source of exquisite enjoyment, 
and an agent of aesthetic, moral, and physical im- 
provement. 



V. 

As dyspeptics are by no means free from abuses 
of appetite, I must disclaim any encouragement of 
over-eating. The Stomach may he filled, without be- 
ing over-loaded and strained. Temperance is always 
necessary, and a man may eat too much food as 



46 SLOW EATING NECESSARY. 

well as drink too much wine or water, or wear too 
much clothing, or do too much work. 

B y a natural law, the digestive powers are propor- 
tioned to the amount of nutrition needed, and not to 
the quantity of food consumed. To eat more than 
the supply of waste and strength requires, is per- 
haps worse than not to eat enough ; as it might be 
wiser to stint Nature a little, than to require her to 
over-work. If the process of eating be slow, there 
will be small danger of serious transgression, unless 
the eater is under the tyranny of a sensual appetite. 

And here I must dilate a little on the absolute 
importance of time in the alimentary process. I 
have stated the reasons which make slow eating 
necessary ; I want now to insist that these reasons 
shall be regarded. 



-& 



Civilization, in securing its advantages, is always 
compelled to make concessions. The Stomach, in 
every member of society, has acquired a vested 
right in so much of his time as will give ample leis- 
ure for the consumption of daily food. This period, 
with our present habits, seems to be from half to 
three fourths of an hour for breakfast, and twice as 
long for dinner. Now, my countrymen are prover- 
bial for sharp dealing ; and nothing is more com- 
mon, I regret to say, than efforts on their part to 
evade this obligation. In the attempt to defraud 
their Stomachs, however, they cheat themselves as 



VARIETY IN FOOD. 47 

well ; for Nature has retained ample security for 
fulfillment, and never fails to enforce a forfeiture for 
any evasion of the bond. The full debt, with in- 
terest compounded, is sure to be collected at the 
grave, (if not sooner,) which advances to meet the 
dishonest debtor on his way. 

Sam Slick records of Abernethy, that he was 
once consulted by a dyspeptic Yankee, who had 
recently entered some diplomatic position in Lon- 
don. As soon as the patient had stated this fact, 
the eccentric physician bade him go his way and 
get well. The stranger angrily demanded an ex- 
planation. " Why," said Abernethy, coolly, " your 
official character will compel you to mingle in good 
society and eat like a civilized being, and that will 
cure you." If I cannot vouch for the truth of the 
story, I can guarantee the soundness of the moral. 



VI. 

Perhaps there is as much virtue in variety in 
food, as in uniformity. In music, we do not always 
wish to be confined to that of Mozart or any one 
master ; or in tragedy, to hear nobody but Booth, 
unequalled though he may be. And if we would, 
as we should, make eating a fine art, we seek those 
principles which Nature has provided for its foun- 
dation. 



48 CHANGE OF DIET. 

We need hinds enough of food, habitually, to 
give us all the elements of the blood ; and a change 
outright is often advantageous. We go to the 
springs, and attribute our improved appetite to the 
water ; or to the sea-side, and are eloquent on the 
efficacy of surf-baths and salt air. But sometimes 
we go into the country, instead, where we find 
neither Congress-water nor ocean-spray ; and yet 
we think food never tasted so well before, nor so 
nourished the system. Now, much credit may be 
given to the air, and much to the water, and 
much, also, to the effect of novelty upon the spirits ; 
but much is also due to the mere change of diet, 
which is sometimes as much a necessity, as for us 
occasionally to walk or ride, instead of always sit- 
ting or standing. 

So, too, it sometimes seems necessary to reverse 
all our rules. The system falls into a condition 
where some positive excitement is needed to bring 
it back to its true tone. For instance, pastry, as 
commonly composed, I consider a crowning tri- 
umph of the enemy, and better calculated to exas- 
perate a critical Stomach and excite a gastric insur- 
rection, than any other compound which the infer- 
nal ingenuity of cooks has ever achieved. The 
pie -crust usually set before us at hotels is absolutely 
infamous ; and I beg pardon of the stall-keepers at 
the Fulton Market, for the comparison, when I say 
that the very scavengers of the wharves can at any 
time, for a few cents, buy of them a better. And 



DISCIPLINING THE STOMACH. 49 

yet, such are the apparent contradictions of Nature, 
that I have sometimes experienced unquestionable 
benefit from eating pie-crust. As, occasionally, the 
muscles need severe tension — as we feel a desire to 
lift heavy weights, or run races, or take a turn at 
fisticuffs, or have a match at wrestling — so does 
the Stomach sometimes seem to need a trial that 
will test it to the utmost, and awaken the sluggish 
powers that seem to be sinking into lethargy. So, 
the simplest diet is not always the best. The 
Stomach needs occasionally to be treated smartly, 
and made to exert itself in order to the mainte- 
nance of its complete integrity. Art has always its 
contradictions, imitating Nature. The finest effects 
in painting are often produced by contrasts ; and 
discords in music are as necessary as concords to 
its completeness. Chemistry is nothing without 
its opposites, wherein, after all, its affinities are 
found ambushed. The principles that govern the 
animal economy belong to the same great family as 
the rest. 

My condemnation of bad pastry, however, must 
not be taken as applying to that which is properly 
made. There are two species of pie-crust that are 
infinitely less objectionable than many other articles 
of common consumption which go unchallenged. 
Both of them are sweet and light ; the one made 
very plainly, with few elements of mischief; the 
other, rich, but delicate and puffy, so that it will 
afford no great resistance to the action «of the gas- 
tric juice. But your heavy, dense pastry — espe- 



50 THE ACCESSORIES OF DINNER. 

dally if the lard or butter be not entirely sweet 
is, as I have said, infamous. 



VII. 

I have alluded to the circumstances which should 
wait upon and dignify the rite of alimentation. 
This consideration deserves emphasis. To people 
of sensitive organizations — the class from which 
Dyspepsia draws its recruits — it is of the utmost 
consequence that the hours allotted to eating and 
digestion be complete in all that creates satisfac- 
tion. Not only should the material meal be irre- 
proachable, — wholesome in quality, artistic in 
cookery, and tasteful in service, — but the domestic 
circle, so far as possible, should be so composed as 
to promote the highest development of social pleas- 
ure. All harassing and laborious thoughts should 
be banished — all displeasing topics avoided in dis- 
course. The very aspect of the dining-room should 
inspire cheerfulness ; the lighting, the color of its 
paint, the pictures on its walls. In these details 
— not trifling or unworthy — the society of our 
age is far behind its intellectual advancement ; in 
some respects we are even inferior to the ancients, 
who, in spite of their absurd dilletantism in cook- 
ery, knew how to convert their banqueting-rooms 
into temples of beauty. No resource was too 
precious for their embellishment ; painting, statu- 



DINNER SHOULD BE A FESTIVAL. 51 

ary and flowers counterfeited the fabled abodes 
of the gods, while the repast was served by the 
loveliest of their slaves. Surely, we may receive 
hints from those kingly races, in whose mythol- 
ogy modern imagination still finds its best sug- 
gestions ; whose Fine Arts we still imitate rather 
than study. 



vin. 

It were a stupid error did I limit the period of 
dinner to the time spent in its consumption. On 
the contrary, I would so enlarge it as to embrace 
the interval of active digestion. The mere eating 
is but a beginning. The same general provisions 
which make dinner a ceremonial of partial festivity, 
should include those hours which follow the des- 
sert. The labors of the day are supposed to be 
over ; and the interval before repose should be 
dedicated to enjoyment. The evening hours should 
be spent in the interest of the Stomach. Instruc- 
tion is by no means debarred, where it does not in- 
volve too much labor ; but I insist that every thing 
like drudgery shall be thrust aside and made to 
await its proper place in the routine of the severe 
day. Books, music, conversation, popular and social 
amusements, — all are appropriate and approved. 
Let the Imagination be encouraged ; and above all, 
the equanimity of the mind fully preserved. Sleep, 



52 ATTITUDE. 

when it approaches, should never find the temper 
inflamed, or the brain excited. 

"We are too much in the habit of yielding our- 
selves to the mood of the hour ; of surrendering to 
the impulse of mirth or melancholy which may 
chance to be upon us. This is weak and demoral- 
izing. Our humors are much more controllable 
than we admit ; and dullness, and even Hypochon- 
dria — the eldest born of Dyspepsia — may be 
shaken off by persistent and judicious effort. The 
will is given us for use; and it should be made 
Grand Marshal of all our organized actions, under 
the direction of that supreme faculty we call Judg- 
ment, and made, to conduct our thoughts to agree- 
able and useful ends. 



IX. 

Another subject, singularly neglected in discus- 
sing digestion, is attitude. If the Stomach is at all 
cramped, its powers are proportionately impaired. 
Women have been taught (though, I fear, to but 
little purpose) that to compress the waist is to con- 
tract the lungs and lay a sure foundation for dis- 
ease. The Stomach also suffers from this compres- 
sion ; but its action is almost equally impeded by 
the faulty attitude which we so often assume in sit- 
ting, or even in standing or sleeping. Nature has 



GYMNASTICS. 53 

designed the human form to be erect. We realize 
the advantage of a prominent chest ; but, to have 
good digestion, we must develop also a prominent 
abdomen. In fact, the healthy action of all vital 
organs seems in some measure dependent on the 
others ; and Nature ordains an erect attitude as 
necessary to all. A habit of holding the shoulders 
well back, insures the prominence of both Stomach 
and chest. To sit stooping, after meals, is as per- 
nicious as ungraceful ; and to walk so, is nearly as 
bad. The habit is not so easy to correct as may 
be supposed ; especially as our chair-makers seem 
in league with the venders of dyspeptic bitters. 
But unless the invalid can insure this reform, I 
will not warrant him a cure. To enjoy perfect 
health, the Stomach must not be cramped in any 
way. 



Connected with this subject, is that of light 
gymnastic exercise, which is often found to be of 
the greatest benefit. I have known a sluggish 
Stomach greatly stimulated by the mere stretching 
backward as far as possible of the body, a few times 
in succession, so as thoroughly to excite the ac- 
tion of its muscles. Dyspeptics often knead the 
abdomen for the same purpose. Rubbing the skin 
briskly with the hands, just over the pit of the Stom- 



54 



THE WATER-CLOSET. 



ach, often gives relief from sensations of heaviness 
or headache caused by indigestion ; such manipula- 
tion stimulates the peristaltic action and relieves the 
cavity from the air liberated by partial fermentation. 
Friction, applied to the region of the liver, often 
has a good effect. Simple as these processes seem, 
I am persuaded that they often possess more effica- 
cy than the prescriptions of our physicians ; while 
it is certain that their effects are at least sure to be 
innocent. 



XL 

The subject of digestion cannot be dismissed 
without allusion to another matter of great delicacy, 
but greater importance. The slightest reflection 
will show us the necessity of providing the alimen- 
tary passages with sufficient opportunities of relief 
from the burden of waste matter rejected by the 
digestive organs. To fail in this, is to tantalize 
Nature and invite debility. No contrivance of civ- 
ilized house-building is more absolutely important 
than the water-closet. Its use should be as invari- 
able as the habit of eating, and attended with all 
the deliberation and composure essential to comfort 
and success. To this end, no pains should be 
spared to render it pleasant and even luxurious, so 
that it may invite, rather than repel, visitation. 
Light, warmth, and quiet should be insured, and 



HIGHER REQUIREMENTS. 55 

hot and cold water ; but it is better to keep it sep- 
erate from the bath-room, which often interferes 
with its use. There is no surer test of hygienic 
education, than a full appreciation of the truth here 
inculcated. 



XII. 

Physical habits alone, however, will not insure 
perfect health to persons of delicate organization. 
So intimate are our mental, moral, and material 
relations, that all must act harmoniously in order 
that either may reach its full development. As 
our civilization rises in character, it must be 
broadened at the base ; a larger philosophy must 
be infused into the daily life. It is not enough 
that our food be unexceptionable, and that it be 
properly eaten, and the ceremony idealized by in- 
fluences of genial art and wholesome hospitality. 
Cheerfulness and contentment should pervade the 
atmosphere in which we dwell ; and the nervous 
system should be spared those heavy draughts so 
often made on it by our terrible American habits 
of over-work and artificial excitement. The pas- 
sions should be controlled equally with the appe- 
tites ; and recreation and culture steadily alternate 
with labor. A perfect life, could it be attained, 
would necessitate a division of the day, the week, 
and the year into periods of labor, recreation, and 



56 ESTHETIC HYGIENE. 

rest ; and if the latter two were faithfully em- 
ployed, the productive results of the first would be 
found greatly richer in the end, owing to the supe- 
rior energy and mental clearness brought to their 
achievement. Five hours of the twenty-four, spent 
in hard work — close, tenacious application, such 
as a well-recuperated system, full of fresh vitality, 
makes easy — would be more effective than fifteen, 
performed by a nervous, dispirited, confused dys- 
peptic ; and the happy influences of the former 
habits upon longevity, could not fail greatly to ex- 
tend the era of performance, as well as that of 
pleasure. It is a monstrous fallacy, which I can- 
not refrain from again exposing, to suppose civiliza- 
tion incompatible with health and long life. A 
natural philosophy teaches the reverse ; but it 
compels the construction of our habits upon princi- 
ples of high art. These, fashioned into a system, 
should make that system as admirable as a fine 
poem ; complete and perfect in its proportions, like 
an inspired temple. We may not think like New- 
ton, and live like savages. "When we forsake the 
life of muscular exercise, and exchange the fresh 
morning air of the hill-side for a place at a desk 
and the cramped respiration of city vapors, we must 
adopt the corresponding habits ordained for our new 
estate. The truer the civilization, the higher will 
be the culture, the more symmetrical the life ; and, 
as a consequence, the more wonderful and the 
more satisfactory will be all the results. While the 
Imagination throws its lights over the commonest 



SOCIAL INTERCOURSE. 57 

events, softening their harsh angles into lines of 
beauty, and finding ever-increasing power for dis- 
tant flights, the Reason will be developed into the 
proportions of an athlete, and conquer new realms 
of reality never before invaded. Pleasure should 
be perpetual ; and life should lengthen and broaden 
for the multiplication of our beneficent triumphs. 

Thus impressed, I have come to realize that, to 
the dyspeptic especially, society and relaxation are 
as necessary as temperance and exercise. I, who 
have sacrificed very liberally on the altar of a false 
utility, have been made, almost as by an inspira- 
tion, to feel that such offerings cannot escape the 
punishment of idolatry. If a man will be thorough- 
ly well, he must preserve the health of all his func- 
tions. To this end, no care can be too great. 
Hours spent each day in literary and artistic stud- 
ies, or in rambles in fields and woods ; evenings 
devoted to social and affectional enjoyments ; whole 
weeks in summer passed in recreative travel, the 
mind getting stout as well as the body, and the 
nerves new toned ; — all these are wise expendi- 
tures, — nay, absolute economies, — saving immeas- 
urably more than the cost they seem to have 
entailed. 

Nor can these pleasures be complete without free 
social intercourse between the sexes. This is as 
absolutely ordained by Nature as are the movements 
of the planets in their appropriate spheres. Men 
and women are destined to create mutual society. 



58 MUTUAL INFLUENCE OF THE SEXES. 

The family circle, where the sexes are impartially 
mingled, gives us the model. Here we find the 
highest and purest form of human association ; but 
let us not commit the error of believing that it can 
fill the place of others equally ordained and equally 
indispensable, in a complete society. The human 
constitution demands variety ; and society is the 
great garden where variety blooms with perennial 
freshness. The torpid and sluggish temperament 
of the dyspeptic, especially demands a pleasurable 
excitement sufficient to induce oblivion of his disa- 
bilities, and to give an impetus to the slow currrent 
of his blood, and enliven the sleepy action of his 
liver. Sometimes he may find this in the company 
of his own sex ; but he is a thousand times more 
likely to do so in that of the other. He mingles 
enough among men, perforce, in the transaction of 
business. Let him improve the lesson instinctively 
learned from Nature ; and, always cherishing his 
domestic relations and preserving a due respect 
for public opinion, never hesitate to cultivate fe- 
male friendships, as among the blessings which 
have been apportioned to his lot. If his ride in the 
Park, or his ramble by the sea-side, can be made 
sweeter and healthier by feminine influences, I 
count it a sin and a shame to reject them. If such 
companionship enhance the pleasures derived from 
his evening at the opera or at Wallack's, I hold him 
to be a simpleton if he make no effort to secure it. 
Men and women are chiefest among the good things 
provided by Providence for the delectation and de- 



CONCLUSION. 59 

velopment of each other ; and mutual neglect 
demonstrates not only mutual folly, but irreverence 
of their divine Author. Let none make any pre- 
tense of misunderstanding me ; for I write, not in 
the interest of passion, but of philosophy ; and, to 
enjoy its fruits, lust must be as far removed from 
our motives, as jealousy, which I regard as one of 
the meanest and most selfish of passions, degrading 
both subject and object, and demoralizing the liver 
far beyond the line of respectable health. 

Of course, in these pages, I but follow the cus- 
tom in using the masculine pronoun for conven- 
ience ; yet I place the sexes on the same plane, and 
design to address my suggestions equally to both. 
My subject interests both alike ; and, of the two, 
it is more important that the life of the female be 
perfect, than that of her hardier mate. 



XIII. 

I have lingered over my little work, which, brief 
as it is, has far outgrown the tiny ideal which rose 
before me when I begun it. That my simple 
experiences have been productive of good to my- 
self, I know ; and I would fain hope that their 
recital, and the conclusions I have drawn, may 
benefit the reader in whose way my venturesome 
Egotism may fall. Its paragraphs are the work of 



60 CONCLUSION. 

occasional, disconnected hours, separated by long, 
inevitable intervals ; — which have served, how- 
ever, to confirm my faith in my own opinions, and 
which were always haunted by a desire to resume 
a lesson which I felt to be full of use. It is now 
ended. 



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